“Dear Sir,—I still object to the word compile—it indicates a work of shreds and patches, and the compiler is one of the lowest pioneers in Grub Street. The word is not susceptible of a good sense except when it is honestly meant to confess the author’s obligation to scissors and paste. If you will have a dissyllable, take compose, anything rather than compile. Don’t let it be said that ‘Mr Godwin is compiling a History of England.’ What will be said, if this passes, even by your friends, and by your enemies in the obnoxious sense to which the words are liable.
“Now, Sir, for another point, but I have a garrulous old gentleman at my elbow, while I write, who, I fear, may disturb my chain of argument.
“It appears to me that you have not made the best of
your cause. It would not seem from the connection of your reasoning that you
have as yet any new materials on which to found your ‘History,’ but
that having ‘undertaken to compile’ such a
work, you have begun to look about you for materials, and that the readiest way
is to advertize for them. I could then most humbly
suggest that some idea like the following should be introduced. That since the
time when Mr Hume wrote his ‘History,’ or during some
late years, much attention has been paid to our national records, and all
descriptions of Literati have been labouring to collect materials for the
illustration of our ‘History,’ that the collections of the British
Museum have been formed or greatly
| 144 | WILLIAM GODWIN |
“Treat all this as you will, believing me to be, Dear Sir, devotedly and truly yours, &c.
